Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Putting children first

On Tuesday evening RTE broadcast a Prime Time
special – A Breach of Trust -on childcare and crèches. Using secretly recorded
film of three crèches the programme showed disturbing images of young children,
some between one and two years of age, being emotionally and physically abused
by some staff.

While it acknowledged that its under-cover
researcher witnessed some very good examples of childcare the focus was on the
ill-treatment that occurred. This included children being thrown about like a
rag doll at nap time in one crèche; children being strapped for hours at a time
into chairs with no stimulation available; staff shouting and cursing at
children; lax supervision, poor or no training, and insufficient numbers of
staff to cope with the children; and staff falsifying diaries of children’s
activities.

The programme revealed that 75% of all
crèches in the state are breaching mandatory standards. The programme also
revealed that there are no inspectors in local health offices in Louth, Dublin
South City, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and North Monaghan.

Many families often pay more than their
mortgages to ensure that their children are in childcare facilities. They
expect that their children will be properly cared for and that their
developmental, educational and learning needs will be catered for. And that all
of this will be properly scrutinised and inspected by government.

However, the RTE programme revealed that the
needs of children are not being met. It exposed the use of unacceptable
practices.

It is clear that there is a serious failure
of regulation and a failure of governance. Breaches of regulations are
widespread, while the inspection regime is simply not up to scratch. Crèches in
some parts of the country have not been inspected for up to four years despite
hundreds of complaints from parents.

This is light touch regulation at its worst.
There seems to be an over emphasis on the business interests of childcare
providers and under emphasis on standards and regulation. Childcare is a very
profitable business, not least because those involved draw down millions in
state funding, despite there being no robust inspection regime.

The Giraffe crèche in Stepaside was featured
on the RTE programme. The Giraffe childcare chain received over €1 million last
year from the state. Along with the two other crèches highlighted in the film
they secured €3.6 million. One of the three crèche groups – Links Childcare and
Montessori Ltd – recorded accumulated profits of €1.7 million last year.

The state paid this money
as part of its Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme under which
every child is entitled to a free preschool place. This system also demands
that children do not miss more than 20 days and the level of funding follows
the child. So if parents move their child to a different crèche then the money
moves with them.

There is an onus on the government to ensure that there is a rigorous
inspection system and that all crèches are fulfilling their statutory
obligations. It also needs to ensure that childcare facilities are providing
the quality framework for early years education that was agreed six years ago.
One report suggests that just 3% of childcare providers are fully implementing
it.

It is also clear that there is a serious
shortage of trained and qualified staff. Almost a quarter of staff members has
either inadequate or no qualifications.

The government should also ensure that no
state funding is provided without a stringent inspection regime, proper
training and robust regulation.

The State should not be funding high cost and
profitable private childcare facilities that are below standard. In fact the
whole policy of dependence on the private for profit sector for childcare
should be reviewed.

Children deserve better and parents need to
be reassured about the standards of care their children will receive. This is a
scandalous situation and the HSE must move immediately to appoint inspectors
for childcare facilities in those counties that have no inspectors.

Sinn Féin has indicated our willingness to work with the government to
facilitate legislative progress on the 'Children First' legislation and the
establishment of the Child and Family Support Agency as one way of addressing
the appalling situation exposed by the RTE programme. But all of this will be
meaningless if the government does not provide the necessary funding and ensure
that the new structures and laws and recommendations are implemented in full.